Fic: Out of Context (10/13)

[katiekins22]

Boston, present time

It’s not until they’re all back inside the hotel, getting ready to steal the Mayor, that Nate really has a moment to regroup. And when he does, Eliot is sitting on the side of the bed, staring at a piece of paper.

Nate knows perfectly well it’s the sheet from Bonanno’s notes that reads ‘Maltese Falcon,’ because he knows it’s been bothering Eliot since he found it. But he can imagine another time, another hotel, another note, and Eliot…

There’s just something about Nate and Eliot and hotel rooms, really. So much history.

Nate wanders over and sits down beside Eliot with a sigh. Eliot doesn’t look up from the paper.

“You know I still hate this plan,” Eliot states after a moment. “I get helping Bonanno, and I meant what I said, I got your back all the way, but seriously, man, anybody smart would be out of the fucking country by now.”

Nate just nods, he already knows all of this. Now that he’s been put firmly in his place by Eliot and Parker, of all people, and had a few minutes to breathe, he knows he perhaps should have listened to his team a little more when they all protested taking and continuing this case, but it’s too late now. Hell, for Nate it was too late the moment he saw Bonanno’s son at the hospital. Some things you just can’t walk away from, no matter how stupid it is to stay. He says as much to Eliot.

Eliot finally looks up from his paper, shooting Nate a sidelong glance and a fond smirk. “Yeah. I get that, too.”

Nate smiles wearily. “You do, don’t you.” It’s not a question. Nate’s pretty much past the point of needing to ask Eliot questions. The only ones left, he’s not sure he wants the answers to, not out loud, not quite yet. Those answers will change things.

And none of this is why he came over anyway.

“Listen,” he says hesitantly, considering laying a hand on Eliot’s shoulder, but deciding against it in broad daylight with the rest of the team wandering around the small space. “I’m… sorry we left early. From the baseball game.”

Eliot stares blankly at him for a moment, and Nate clears his throat, unsure.

Finally, Eliot shakes his head, chuckling in that breathy way of his. “Wow, that - yeah, I’m kinda over that at this point? Between the FBI, and fuckin’ Sterling: Agent of Interpol, you bailin’ on my stupid ballgame has been put in perspective, Nate. Don’t worry about it.”

Nate frowns and clasps his hands between his knees, remembering Eliot arriving at McRory’s with his feathers so very ruffled. “…okay. If you say we’re good, we’re good,” Nate murmurs, shooting Eliot a dubious sidelong look.

Eliot snorts and rolls his eyes, looking away from Nate and back to the paper in his hands. He’s folded it without looking, and is turning it slowly in his hands, one quarter turn and running his fingers along the edge, then another quarter turn and repeat. It has the look of an old habit.

“…I never played baseball. As a kid,” Eliot says quietly after a moment, the low, soft tone of his voice taking Nate back to that night in his apartment, when Eliot and Parker had been curled up on the couch, talking about family. “I was actually kinda scrawny when I was little. And my hometown… Well, it was small and God-fearin’ and everybody knew everybody’s business. Most of the kids weren’t allowed to play with the Spencer bastard.”

There’s no bitterness in his voice at this admission, just a sort of wistful acceptance. Nate clenches his teeth and nods.

“Anyway, after Mama married Kenny… You know, I understand now that he was tryin’ to connect with me, somehow, which was decent of him. Might have worked better if he’d picked somethin’ I liked, but at least he gave it a shot. He took me to try out for Little League.” Eliot pauses to chuckle again and shake his head. “It was a fuckin’ disaster, man. I was a skinny little freak at that age, just wanted to be left alone, and the kids and coaches didn’t want anythin’ to do with me anyway.”

“I take it you didn’t make the team,” Nate says slowly.

Eliot laughs. “Yeah, not hardly. And that was kinda...” He shrugs, looks down to the paper in his hands again. “Kenny played baseball in high school. Never made it anywhere, but hometown hero kinda thing, you know? If I’d been any good at it, maybe…” He gets a distant, slightly vulnerable look for a moment that takes Nate right back to the job in Nebraska, then shakes his head and smiles. “But I wasn’t. And that was pretty much that. Couple years later, I outgrew the quiet an’ awkward stage, and I got into boxing and wrestling, never was much for team stuff, but by then they had their own kids, and anyway, it wasn’t fuckin’ baseball, and they just didn’t come out to my meets any too often, is all. So, I guess, when you guys left, it just kinda pissed me off. Finally playin’ the right fuckin’ game, actually good at it, and I still can’t get my own personal cheerin’ section?” He smiles wryly at his own comment, eyes bright with self-deprecating humor as he looks at Nate, inviting him to share the joke.

It’s really not funny, though.

It’s not funny, because Nate had a son, once, a son he loved with all his heart. And he can remember a thousand repetitions of the demand, “Watch this, Daddy! Watch me!”

Nate closes his eyes for a moment against the onslaught of memory, then forces it away with a sigh, and looks at Eliot, who’s watching him uncertainly. And it’s not that Eliot is like a son to him, because he isn’t, he never was, they’re much too close in age for that. But… it’s just sad, Nate supposes. Eliot was probably a pretty great kid too, and nobody was watching him, the way the people who love you are supposed to. Their loss, but Eliot’s loss, too, which is really more Nate’s concern.

“I’m sorry I left,” he says one more time, quietly, honestly.

And Eliot’s eyes widen just slightly, as they do when he’s startled, and his face goes blank before he looks away. “Oh. Well. You know. It’s okay,” he murmurs.

Nate frowns, wondering why this time the apology wasn’t shrugged off.

Eliot turns back to him with a grin and claps Nate on the shoulder almost hard enough to knock him off the bed. “Alright, enough of this sharing and caring crap, we got us a crazy-ass Nate Ford plan to set in motion,” he enthuses, getting up and flipping the folded paper in his hand open with a practiced snap of his wrist as he walks away from the bed, already frowning at it again.

Nate watches him go.

Nebraska, eight months ago

Before the fight, Nate had been so distracted by Eliot’s sweaty curls that he’d actually almost missed the drugged water bottle. It made it easier to play up his fake realization for Rucker’s benefit later, but it was scary how close he’d come to really screwing up.

In retrospect, that might have been why he let himself fixate so much afterwards on Eliot having curly hair, so he didn’t have to think about that, about how he’d almost let Eliot get badly hurt. And about how he’d ended up hurting Eliot himself anyway.

The bottle thing was just so stupid, because Rucker was so very lacking in subtlety and finesse, Nate should have assumed from the start he’d try the same damn trick on Eliot that he’d used on their client. He shouldn’t have had to grab the bottle away at the last second while Eliot was warming up, heart beating double time and eyes wide in horror at his own stupidity, and what it could have caused.

They couldn’t be sure, of course, how Eliot would have reacted to whatever drug Rucker had put in the water that time, but based on what their client had experienced, it was probably either some kind of sedative or hallucinogen. Sedatives Eliot could probably have handled, but Nate didn’t even want to think about Eliot on acid in the middle of a fight. Although it had given Nate the idea for his last-minute change in the plan.

It wasn’t until much later, after the fight was over and they were all back at the motel, that it had occurred to Nate that the blank stare Eliot had given him for a long moment after he’d asked the man to pretend to be drugged and let his instincts take over, to pretend to be trying to kill his opponent, might have been an indication that Eliot was uncomfortable with that plan.

Nate had tossed and turned in his bed for a while, wrestling with vague feelings of guilt and concern, until Hardison had finally thrown a pillow in his general direction and suggested that he should be allowed to watch his torrents if Nate wasn’t going to sleep anyway.

Nate had sat up, and scowled, and belatedly demanded to know why exactly Hardison was settled on the other bed in the room Nate had been sharing with Eliot. Nate and Eliot got along well enough to room together without getting on each other’s nerves, and neither of them did well for long periods of time in enclosed spaces with Hardison, which was why Hardison had gotten the single room down the hall, instead of staying in the suite the rest of them were sharing.

Hardison had rolled his eyes and muttered, “Nate, when Eliot gives me that look and tells me he needs some space in the form of my luxurious single motel room, I give the man space. I don’t have a death wish, you know.”

Nate had scowled, but couldn’t really dispute Hardison’s logic - there were times you just didn’t argue with Eliot, and when he said he needed space, you gave him space. Nate laid in bed and stared at the ceiling for a while, listening to Hardison typing, thinking about Eliot’s curly hair and that waitress with the sweet smile at McRory’s when he was a kid, what was her name? And eventually he came up with a good enough excuse and got up and dressed, making vague noises about concussions and somebody needing to be responsible that apparently didn’t fool Hardison for a second, if the dubious ‘whatever, man, it’s your funeral’ look he gave Nate as he departed the room in search of Eliot was any indication.

Eliot didn’t respond the first time Nate knocked, or the second. The third time he got a few muffled, angry curses, and almost decided maybe this wasn’t his best idea. But he tried again anyway, and the door flew open under his hand, blazing blue eyes glaring out at him.

“What,” Eliot growled, as Nate took in the bruises darkening on his face, and the way one eye was swelling shut.

“I thought, maybe… I mean. I’m, uh… about tonight, the fight, I…” Nate knew he wasn’t making any sense, but he hadn’t quite thought the impulse to come check on Eliot through far enough to have a valid excuse on hand. He was usually much better at lying on demand, but… well, that might have been part of the problem - he didn’t want to lie to Eliot.

“I’m tired, Nate, I was just going to bed,” Eliot stated flatly, and Nate thought maybe Eliot wasn’t up to his usual standards of lying either, since he was still wearing his boxing shorts and sweat-stained tee shirt, and Nate doubted he intended to sleep in them. Eliot hadn’t showered yet, either.

“Then you should let me in,” Nate declared. “The doctor thought you probably had a concussion, somebody needs to wake you up and check on you.”

Eliot’s scowl deepened. “I can set the alarm, and I’ve handled concussions on my own before, you know. I don’t think I even have one, anyway. My head’s harder than most people realize.”

Nate snorted, and grinned a little. “Well, I can’t argue with that.”

Eliot seemed to debate for a moment between slamming the door in his face and grinning back, but eventually came down on the side of good humor. He shook his head, wincing a little, and stepped back, giving Nate room to ease past him before closing the door.

As soon as he stepped into the room, Nate detected the scent of alcohol, and quickly spotted the open bottle on the nightstand. At first he thought it was empty, but a second look reassured him it was still more than half full, it was just that the contents were clear. Vodka. Eliot was not in general a vodka drinker. He mostly stuck to beer, and he preferred whiskey, like Nate, if he was going for the hard stuff. Nate had only rarely seen Eliot drink vodka, and it was always for the same reason when he did.

Nate turned toward the man leaning against the closed door and watching him. “Forgetting?” he asked, mouth curling slightly in a wry smile.

Eliot shrugged and smirked at him a little. “Tryin’ to,” he replied, pushing away from the door and past Nate to sit on the bed. He picked up the bottle, took a drink, then stared at it a moment before firmly replacing the cap and setting it aside.

Nate joined him on the edge of the bed, and waited, staring at the carpet. Eliot was silent a long time, but Nate had come prepared to be patient. If he didn’t want to talk, Eliot wouldn’t have let him in, but he also wouldn’t open his mouth until he was ready.

“The others okay?” Eliot asked finally.

Nate frowned a little, confused. “…they’re fine. They didn’t get beat up.”

Eliot snorted and shook his head carefully. “I meant with me. What they saw.”

Nate studied Eliot silently for a moment. “They saw an act. They saw you pretend to snap from being drugged. They were expecting it. Why wouldn’t they be okay with that?”

Eliot shrugged. “I guess people do see what they’re expectin’ to, most of the time,” he mused.

Nate frowned. “Eliot - ”

“I used to do this, this kind of fightin’, when I was a kid,” Eliot cut him off. Nate closed his mouth and studied Eliot’s profile. The younger man’s battered face was blank, his visible eye fixed intently on the empty wall in front of him. “’Course, we didn’t call it MMA back then. Hell, wasn’t even UFC yet. Just a bunch of guys beatin’ on each other, really, but there were… rules, even then. It wasn’t just about brawlin’, it was about… pride. Honor.” He shook his head, smiling grimly.

“I had too much pride, or not enough honor, I guess. Was in a fight like this the first time I lost control. When I found out I was a monster.”

Nate sighed in mingled guilt, concern, and irritation. “You’re not a monster,” he snapped, a little more harshly than he’d intended, because he didn’t like it when Eliot talked about himself like that.

Nate had come to the conclusion, after many years of observation and consideration, that there probably was something truly broken inside Eliot, or maybe something missing that should have been there, for whatever reason. But he wasn’t about to explain to Eliot that it was his casual, untroubled attitude towards killing and hurting people when he was rational much more than the damage he could inflict when he lost control of his rage that made Nate think this. Eliot was aware he wasn’t quite right in the head, but he’d fixated long ago on the problem he could mostly control, so Nate wasn’t going to call attention to the one he probably couldn’t do anything about.

He wasn’t a monster, though.

“I beat another kid into a coma,” Eliot informed him calmly. “They didn’t think he was gonna wake up at first, but he did, eventually. Still walks with a cane, but he didn’t die, so I didn’t go to prison. But I was just out of high school, and my folks - whole damn town, really - let me know I wasn’t welcome anymore. Spent a few weeks sleepin’ in the Martins’ stable until my enlistment came through. I hadn’t exactly planned on the army, but I just had to get out of this town, and I guess I thought, maybe…” Eliot shook his head, smiling wryly. “My court-appointed shrink thought it would be a better way to channel my aggression.”

Nate nodded and bit his lip and wondered if Eliot realized he’d said “this town.” Eliot was not from Nebraska, and Nate should have known better than to ask him to fake losing control in that fight. Eliot had been in a strange place mentally since they’d taken this job, Nate just hadn’t realized that place had been his own past, though he probably should have.

“Well, you did eventually manage to make a career of channeling your aggression, so in a way, the shrink wasn’t totally useless,” Nate pointed out, trying to lighten Eliot’s mood.

Eliot wasn’t biting, or even listening, apparently. “I thought it was just this place, these people, if I got out maybe I wouldn’t be so angry all the time, but… it just never goes away,” he murmured, barely loud enough for Nate to convince himself Eliot was speaking to him, and not just talking to himself.

Nate sat silently, not knowing what else to say, and Eliot was quiet beside him, but tense, and growing moreso with each passing moment.

Finally, the younger man drew a ragged breath and muttered unhappily, “You need to go now, Nate.”

Nate turned to Eliot with a worried frown, and met earnest, almost pleading blue eyes. Well, eye. One was swollen pretty much shut now. “Nate. I can’t… can’t be around anyone tonight, okay? I can handle it, but you bein’ here is making it harder, so just go, please?”

Nate opened his mouth to protest, then sighed and closed it, frowning. He met Eliot’s stare for a moment, then reluctantly nodded, standing up from the bed. “You call me if you change your mind,” he insisted. “If you need… anything. I’ll leave my phone on. Don’t worry about waking up Hardison, I don’t think he sleeps anyway.”

Eliot managed a weak smile in reply and stood also, crowding Nate towards the door. “Yeah. I’ll see you in the morning. With a bitch of a hangover, probably, so don’t piss me off.”

Nate chuckled a little at the attempt at humor, but paused just outside the door, catching it as Eliot started to close it on him. “You’re not a monster, Eliot,” he insisted quietly. “You didn’t hurt Tank any more than you needed to. You didn’t lose control tonight. You haven’t for a long time.”

Eliot raised his eyebrow as Nate took his hand off the door. “You really sure I was fakin’, Nate?” he asked quietly. Nate stared at him in shock for a moment. Eliot smirked and shrugged. “Maybe I was just countin’ on you bein’ there to stop me.”

While Nate was still struggling for a coherent reaction, Eliot sighed and gently shut the door between them. Nate blinked at the sound of the deadbolt thunking into place, followed by the sound of a body hitting the door and sliding down against it.

He wasn’t sure, of course. He couldn’t be sure, no one could but Eliot. Nate knew that Eliot wasn’t a violent man, at heart. But he also knew Eliot was fully capable of violence, of murder, and the possibility of Eliot losing control of the rage he carried inside him was something Nate should really think about more than he did. Something about Eliot, his disarming charm and the not at all dangerous irritation he displayed around the team, tended to make Nate forget just how dark his darker side really was.

Nate rubbed at his tired eyes, reminding himself that if Eliot had killed Tank in that fight, it probably wouldn’t have bothered Eliot beyond the annoyance of having to dispose of the body and silence the witnesses. And apparently what the rest of the team would think of it all. Which, Nate supposed, was a useful piece of information. Before the team, Nate’s opinion had been the only one he knew of that had any slight importance to Eliot, any hope of influencing his actions. There were a few more checks on those violent impulses now, it seemed, a few more layers to Eliot’s self-control, maybe. That had to be a good thing.

Nate wasn’t sure how the others would react if they saw Eliot kill someone. Or at least knew they had, as Nate suspected with the amount of goons and guards they’d come up against, there were probably a few that hadn’t gotten up again after Eliot put them down. Even after all this time, he found he couldn’t be sure of their reactions. As for Nate, he found that these days he worried more about the damage Eliot did to himself when he lost control of his anger than about what he could do to other people. Nate just wasn’t that concerned about other people, when it came right down to it, at least not the ones Eliot had to fight for the team.

Eliot was important to him, though. Eliot was his friend.

Nate slumped against the door and eased himself down to sit on the floor in front of it, and prepared to wait out the long night until he could get Eliot out of this town, and back to where he belonged.

Part 11